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Theories Of John Wilkes Booth's Assassination

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On the evening of April 14th, 1865 a great tragedy stuck the United States. For the first time in American history the president had been assassinated. His assassinator was a man named John Wilkes Booth. There are several theories attempting to explain why Booth would have wanted to commit such a heinous act. The first theory and the one of the more common ones suggests that Booth is a mentally unstable actor. Another theory states that Booth was a Confederate sympathizer. One of the most prevalent theories calls Booth a conspiracy theorist. Each one of these theories is backed by evidence which has been gathered by a number of researchers throughout the course of time. By thoroughly examining the pieces of the puzzle we can put them together …show more content…

As a Southern actor “Booth identified with the South and its way of life and deeply resented the interference of Northerners who wanted to change it.” This appears to be odd as a vast number of researches agree that the Booth family primarily did not support the confederacy. The Booth family “never owned slaves and his brothers voted for Lincoln.” John Wilkes Booth was viewed as the black sheep of the Booth family. His reputation and status as a upcoming Southern actor is likely to be the reason he viewed himself as a Southerner. In fact, when Lincoln won the nomination for the republican candidacy, many Southerners felt as though they would lose everything they stood for. Perhaps this is why Booth had such a strong abhorrence for President Lincoln. It is a well-known fact that Lincoln did not want the United States to operate using slave labor, which was against the ways of the Southern states in the Confederacy. Lincoln’s law partner had once said “when Lincoln witnessed a slave auction during his trip to New Orleans in 1828 the sight filled him with ‘unconquerable hate.’” This conflict over slavery verses anti-slavery is what divided the country and caused the civil war, so it’s likely that Booth saw the act of killing Lincoln as an act of war in representing the Southern states. Booth had even said he was merely a Confederate “doing duty on his own …show more content…

Take for instance the first theory where Booth is presented as a mentally unstable actor. Yes Booth was an actor, but the evidence does not prove whether or not he was mentally unstable. In fact almost all the evidence for that particular theory is based off of mere assumptions and guessing. Without solid evidence stating whether or not Booth was actually crazy, this theory cannot stand correct. Ninian J. Beall mentioned that “no psychiatrist had occasion to study Booth prior to the assassination and no opportunity to do so afterwards.” Our second theory suggested that Booth sympathized and identified with the Confederate states. This theory has quite a bit more substantial evidence to it. Running through the evidence one more time we know that the Southern states thought that Lincoln was going to take away everything that they built their way of life on. With that and the result of the civil war the Southerners were infuriated giving Booth a motive as a Confederate sympathizer. There is enough evidence to say that Booth killed Lincoln for the sake of avenging the Confederacy. The final theory states that Booth created a conspiracy group in order to take out the Union’s President, Vice President, and Secretary of State. This theory also has quite a bit of strong evidence backing it up. After reviewing the three

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